Engaging the Nation in Canadian Music Conversations

There’s multiple conversations taking place on Kill Your Boyfriend, least of which is between Dante DeCaro and listeners who know him primarily as one-fourth of Wolf Parade and a founding member of Hot Hot Heat.

What strikes me first is the exchange between the characters DeCaro brings to life through his poetic, narrative lyrics. Songs like “Rwanda” and “Rachel” are populated in the first-person, lending a Springsteen-like authority to DeCaro’s storytelling. Like a seasoned novelist, he’s invested time and emotions into his creations, and we can’t help but be drawn into their tales.

To punctuate and propel his stories forward, DeCaro engages in a subtle (but highly effective) heart-to-heart between acoustic guitar strumming and authoritative lead guitar lines, and the swelling progression of chords into soaring choruses like the one on “On The Loose”. His instrumentation tells his tales as clearly as his lyrics, each perfectly in time with the other. He’s dubbed the EP ‘a collection of songs’ on its cover, but that doesn’t quite do Kill Your Boyfriend justice. It is a collection of songs, yes, but also a collection of love and longing, of ideas and influences, secrets and confessions.

Jim founded the music blog Quick Before It Melts in 2006 and was its principal writer until 2016, when its decade-long run ended 10 years to the day it started. DOMINIONATED is its spiritual successor. Jim currently serves as a Polaris Music Prize jurist and Prism Prize jurist.